Trinket

The Market was often described as cruel, but really it was unfeeling. Every day Eva logged on to the app with her phone to check the AM opportunities. One could choose either online or live; Eva preferred the former because she had a hard time being social, but the morning was always rife with live shifts. She selected delivery and the timer started counting down. She had fourteen minutes to get to the truck before her shift would go to someone else and she would earn a strike.

Eleven minutes later, Eva was locking her bike up next to the big delivery truck she had been assigned. She hopped in and was immediately hit by the overpowering smell of seafood mixed with cooked eggs and pastries. Individually, these might have been a pleasant escape from the reality of the fully automated world Eva occupied, but together she had to keep from retching. She scanned her phone into a small receiver on the dash and the truck started up. The timer reset, giving Eva forty minutes to make the deliveries.

She knew this was going to be nearly impossible, but she was willing to strategically use a strike here and accept partial payment for finishing the job after the timer went off. It was near the end of the month so her strikes would reset in a few days anyway. As she pulled out of the delivery bay, her phone locked, presenting her only with a map of her next stop and the timer. She wanted to text Bethany to make sure she remembered to turn the compost before she left. Eva was hoping to get some work done over the weekend, but would need the biofuel to do it.

The drive was easy enough, in so much as Eva was hardly even doing anything. The commerce roads were smooth and free of all other vehicles. Dozens of large delivery trucks sped by in either direction. The heavily tinted windows made it impossible to tell which trucks were automated and which weren’t. Usually only perishable goods up for last mile delivery, which is to say the distance between the distribution center and the actual final location, were driven by humans. Driven wasn’t really the correct word of course, as all vehicles were automated, but most companies liked a human to make sure that the perishable goods actually made it out of the truck.

Arriving at her first stop quickly, Eva was greeted by a young man who was far too energetic for an AM shift. She picked up her phone that was prompting her to confirm she had arrived. After checking the box, the window automatically rolled down and the timer reset to two minutes. This would hardly be enough time to locate the right boxes, let alone get them all unloaded. The timer was blue, not red, indicating failure to meet it wouldn’t result in a strike, it was just letting Eva know how long she had to stay on track.

“Hey, I heard you’ve got some lobsters for me!” The man said jovially.

Eva didn’t respond, instead holding out her phone, and letting the man press his to it. A nice chiming sound let them both know that the lobsters were now officially his problem. He went around the back, which had opened itself, and hopped up. Eva kept one eye on him in the rearview mirror. Anything else lost would come out of her earnings. He poked around for what felt like forever before finally exclaiming.

“Eureka!”

The man then stacked two of the six boxes and took them over to a waiting hand truck. Eva avoided expressing her frustration. She felt like someone his age should probably be able to handle at least three boxes at a time.

The timer was at negative three minutes when the man finally returned to her window. The scanned phones again. The man opened his mouth to say something, but the window was already rolling up of its own accord, and her phone had locked again to reveal the next location.

Without even realizing what had happened, Eva’s phone buzzed at her angrily. She jolted awake, having no memory of falling asleep in the truck. A large red notification flared on her phone informing her she had been docked ten percent of that day’s earnings. Eva let out a scream of frustration, which was made all the more awkward when realized that the window had already been rolled down and a woman roughly her age was standing outside looking at her.

“Uh, pastry delivery?” The woman asked sheepishly, holding her phone out to scan.

Eva straightened up quickly, and grabbed her phone to scan back.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m so sorry,” Eva replied over the sound of the chime from the phones.

“It’s okay, did you get docked for sleeping?” The woman asked.

“Yeah,” Eva replied, the despondence in her voice coming through more than she meant it to.

“Happens to me all the time,” the woman replied, speaking loudly as she walked toward the back of the truck.

Eva opened the small window to the cargo bay to hear her better.

“It’s like, what the fuck do you care if I’m asleep while I’m waiting for deliveries? You’re gonna wake me up when they’re here anyway right?” The woman commiserated.

Eva finally took some notice of her. She was tall, and had curly hair that was being suppressed by a hair net. Eva unconsciously bit her bottom lip a bit.

“So uh, you worked here for a long time?” Eva asked clumsily.

“Yeah, feels like forever at least. It’s a good AM shift because once I get these unloaded into the cart for the business park I can usually catch a PM shift just walking around picking up trash.”

“Nice,” Eva replied, hoping her brain would conjure up more words before all the pink pastry boxes were stacked onto this woman’s cart.

“What’s your name?” The woman asked.

“Eva. You?”

“Cassandra, but Cass is shorter,” the woman replied.

“Unlike you,” Eva shot back in, smirking.

“What?”

“Because, you’re tall. Like Cass as a nickname is short, but you are tall so…”

“Oh, gotcha,” Cass chuckled.

Eva’s eyes were wide as she turned to stare at herself in the mirror with a pleading look. Cass finished unloading the boxes and came back around to rescan. Eva took a deep breath, and harden her resolve, silently committing to do what she wanted to do.

“Hey, Cass, do you want…”

“Here,” Cass interrupted her by handing her a freshly baked donut, with pink frosting and colorful sprinkles on top.

“What?” Eva asked, looking around quickly to make sure no one could see them.

“Don’t stress girl, the business park orders the donuts, not the people who actually get them, so I always throw away a few each day to make sure I can take some without the order size decreasing,” Cass explained.

Eva starred at her with her jaw agape.

“I know, I know, but just take it,” Cass demanded, holding the donut out.

Eva took the donut, dumbstruck. Cass reached her phone over to press against Eva’s. The chime confirmed their interaction was over, and the window began to roll up.

“Wait, no, uh do you WANT TO GO DATE!?” Eva yelled frantically as the window rolled up.

Cass laughed and nodded. The truck was already preparing to drive off.

“Come back tomorrow for my number,” Cass yelled.

Eva smiled and nodded back.

As the truck continued on its route, Eva bit into the donut. Her face flushed, and she let out a small moan. It was the sweetest thing she had ever tasted.

When she got home, she saw Bethany had not turned the compost. Eva mixed it as best she could before loading it into the generator attached to the large metal container that was their home. The screen flashed and indicated she would have about four hours of power. It might have been six if it was better compost, but four was still enough of time. The 3D printer took about five minutes to boot up, so she gave herself that long to sit on the couch before getting back to work.

Her mind wandered to Cass. Tall Cass. Cass, who had given her the sweetest donut of all time. Cass, who had said yes to a date. Her hand slowly strolled down her body before the printer beeped that it was ready and Eva was jolted out of her daydream. She contemplated giving herself another five or ten minutes, but opted to just get to work instead.

The screen flashed several possible orders she could fill and the amount of money she would earn for each one relative to the daily cost of renting the 3D printer. The best one would have been small plastic caps for toothpaste, but Eva opted for something else. It was a small plastic heart-shaped locket.

She turned on the news as she started to work, basically feeding the printer material, and checking each locket to make sure it came out okay. After awhile her back got stiff so she got up to stretch it out, put on some sweats and a t-shirt, and turned on the news. The anchor was doing a heartfelt story about people who had been removed from The Market permanently. Being removed from The Market was a death sentence.

“Three strikes in three consecutive months, or dismissal based on theft,” the anchor explained as Eva eyed the pile of lockets with some reservation.

The camera showed an overpass filled to the brim with people in a makeshift camp. It had flooded over the weekend and they were sorting through the tents and tarps to see if anything was salvageable.

Eventually Bethany got home and helped her pick out the perfect locket for Cass.

“This one is nearly flawless,” she remarked, holding one up and admiring it.

“Yeah, but this one has some character,” Eva replied, showing off one with a slight chip in the heart.

“Oh my god, you should put a picture of yourself in one side and a donut in the other,” Bethany said, laughing at her own suggestion.

They both giggled at this until a few seconds later when the power finally shut off.

The next day, Eva woke up earlier than usual and stayed glued to her phone to snag the same AM shift. As soon as it popped up on The Market she grabbed it, and smiled as widely as she had in years. She put her box of heart shaped lockets outside the house for delivery, the chipped one safely in her breast pocket, before heading out. She was so chipper she didn’t even mind the overpowering food smell, or the same young man who took too long to unload the lobster.

The giddiness soon turned to nervousness as she began her route to the business park where Cass worked. What if Cass had misheard her? What if she was coming on too strong with the heart shaped locket? She spied a lone sprinkle that escaped the day before on the floor of the truck, and regained her resolve, pulling the locket out and turning it over in her hand. When she pulled up, however, she was greeted by a large bearded man. She quickly inquired as to Cass’ whereabouts.

“She was removed from The Market for felony theft,” the man answered.

Eva dropped the locket as the timer on her phone ticked away.